Verdant pastures

WITH his tousled but cherubic looks and a voice sounding even younger than his 29 years, Jesse Klaver is the latest standard-bearer of a party that is trying to recapture its idealistic élan, and so inject new life into his country’s politics. “A sense has developed in the Netherlands, in Europe, in the West, that there is nothing we can do about anything, that this is just the way the world is,” exclaims the man who last week became leader of the Dutch GreenLeft party, succeeding a politician 30 years older. “It’s not true. We built this world, brick by brick, and what you build yourself you can change yourself.”

As a rebuilder of his own party’s fortunes, he may succeed. In 2012 the Dutch Greens saw electoral disaster, dropping from ten seats in the 150-seat parliament to just four after a pointless struggle over the party leadership. Now they are staging a comeback: a poll after Mr Klaver’s accession showed them winning 13 seats.